Attorney begins paying out on his restaurant fundraiser with own money

The Milwaukee attorney who started S.O.S. (Save Our Spots), a fundraiser on GoFundMe for Milwaukee restaurants, is paying off now with his own money.

This week, C.J. Krawczyk distributed $15,000 among six restaurant owners.

Owners of The Tandem, Bavette la Boucherie, Three Brothers, GoodKind, Pilcrow and Interval and Ca’Lucchenzo in Wauwatosa received checks of $2,500 each. The money came from the personal account of C.J. and his wife, Julie Krawczyk.

The first wave of restaurants receiving the funds were selected for one or more reasons, Krawczyk said. They were historic, multi-generational businesses like Three Brothers that brought value to their neighborhoods; they do important community outreach such as the Tandem; or, as in Bavette, they represent Milwaukee nationally.

The story began on March 19, when Krawczyk, an attorney, decided to start a fundraiser for restaurants instead of dining out for his 46th birthday. His goal was $25,000, which he exceeded. He and his wife seeded the campaign with $4,600.

GoFundMe temporarily shut down Krawczyk’s campaign for two days last week because funds were coming in so quickly — he raised more than $16,000 in 18 hours — the online charity clearinghouse stopped donations so it could verify the account.

According to the GoFundMe website: “We work with payment partners that coordinate the safe transfer of funds for your campaign. They verify your personal information to guarantee that funds are sent to the correct individual or organization.”

GoFundMe shuttered the site until it received verification, but engineers duplicated the page instead of restoring it, Krawczyk said, and the duplicate page doesn’t allow Krawczyk to update the 200 people who had previously donated or to withdraw the money.

So he did it on his own. Krawczyk said he spoke with others in the restaurant community who recommended he get the money out now and that he not spread the donations too thin.

“Even though our arbitrary goal, which is obviously a fraction of the actual need, has been met, we plan to keep going as long as the media and donors are engaged and money is coming in,” Krawczyk said on the S.O.S. site on Facebook.

He said he will distribute the rest of the funds when the GoFundMe issue is resolved.

KRAWCZYK C.J. Caitlin Cullen of Tandem restaurant accepts a check for $2,500 that C.J. Krawczyk raised in his birthday fundraiser S.O.S. (Save Our Spots).